Galaxy S8 may ship with Google's AI program: Yonhap

An artificial program promoted by Google Inc. may ship with Samsung Electronics Co.'s latest smartphone, the Galaxy S8, that will come with the tech giants own Bixby voice support program, industry sources said Friday.

According to the sources, the Galaxy S8, which runs on the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system, will likely have the Google Assistant program, which has similar features to Bixby.

Bixby is seen as one of the key features of the Galaxy S8 that was unveiled earlier in the week in New York and London. While the program is fundamentally similar to that of Apple Inc.'s Siri and Amazon's Alexa, Samsung claims Bixby is "smarter" and more intuitive than any of its rivals.

Samsung stressed Bixby is equipped with so-called "deep learning" artificial intelligence (AI) technology that allows it to learn how to better communicate with users as it accumulates data.

The South Korean tech giant earlier said it plans to use its artificial intelligence program in all of its products, including TVs and other home appliances. The company claimed its AI system will be different from rivals in terms of "completeness," "context awareness" and "cognitive tolerance."

LG Electronics Inc. introduced the Google Assistant on its smartphone for the first time with the launch of its G6 premium phone. Industry watchers said if the Galaxy S8 comes with two voice assistants, users would be able to compare the two and opt for the one with the better performance.

"Samsung plans to apply Bixby even on budget smartphones. In the near future, the Bixby and Google Assistant will be found inside a single device and compete with each other," an industry watcher said.